'Cultic' Temple, 10,000-Year-Old House Found in Israel

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Archaeologists say they've uncovered some stunning finds while
digging at a construction site in Israel, including stone axes, a
"cultic" temple and traces of a 10,000-year-old house.

The discoveries provide a "broad picture" of human development
over thousands of years, from the time when people first started
settling in homes to the early days of urban planning, officials
with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said.

The excavation took place at Eshtaol, located about 15 miles (25
kilometers) west of Jerusalem, in preparation of the widening of
an Israeli road. The oldest discovery at the site was a building
from the eighth millennium B.C., during the Neolithic period.
[ See
Photos of the Excavations at Eshtaol ]

"This is the first time that such an ancient structure has been
discovered in the Judean Shephelah,"
archaeologists with the IAA said, referring to the plains
west of Jerusalem.

The building seems to have undergone a number of renovations and
represents a time when humans were first starting to live in
permanent settlements rather than constantly migrating in search
of food, the researchers said. Near this house, the team found a
cluster of abandoned flint and limestone axes.

"Here we have evidence of man's transition to permanent dwellings
and that in fact is the beginning of the
domestication of animals and plants ; instead of searching out
wild sheep, ancient man started raising them near the house," the
archaeologists said in a statement.

The excavators also say they found the remains of a possible
"cultic" temple that's more than 6,000 years old. The researchers
think this structure, built in the second half of the fifth
millennium B.C., was used for ritual purposes, because it
contains a heavy, 4-foot-tall (1.3 meters)
standing stone that is smoothed on all six of its sides and
was erected facing east.

"The large excavation affords us a broad picture of the
progression and development of the society in the settlement
throughout the ages," said Amir Golani, one of the excavation
directors for the IAA. Golani added there is evidence at Eshtaol
of the rural society making the transition to an urban one during
the early Bronze Age, 5,000 years ago.

"We can see distinctly a settlement that gradually became
planned, which included alleys and buildings that were extremely
impressive from the standpoint of their size and the manner of
their construction," Golani explained in a statement. "We can
clearly trace the urban planning and see the guiding hand of the
settlement's leadership that chose to regulate the construction
in the crowded regions in the center of the settlement and
allowed less planning along its periphery."

The buildings and artifacts were discovered ahead of the widening
of Highway 38, which runs north-south through the city of Beit
Shemesh.

Throughout Israel, construction projects often lead to new
archaeological discoveries. For example, during recent expansions
of Highway 1, the main road connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv,
excavators discovered 9,500-year-old animal figurines, a
carving of a phallus from the Stone Age and a ritual building
from the First Temple era.